#hostile one

[rosewind2007]

@gamebird asked why some individuals are designated “Target One/Two/Three” and others are “Hostile One/Two/Three”?

Which was an interesting question? I wondered was there even a difference?

These are individuals who Murderbot specifically refers to as by capitalised names. There are twenty one such individuals in total:

Hostile One (the giant worm in All Systems Red)

Hostiles One, Two and Three (SecUnits and Combat SecUnit in Exit Strategy)

Hostiles One and Two (augmented human assassins in Network Effect flashbacks, sent to kill Mensah on Preservation)

Targets One, Two and Three (Tlacey’s thugs in Artificial Condition)

Targets One and Two (GrayCris agents in Exit Strategy)

Targets One, Two, Three and Four (boat raiders in Network Effect)

Targets One, Two, Three, Four, Five and Six (the weird gray people in Network Effect)

Which I realised IS A PATTERN!

All the TARGETS are human and all the HOSTILES are…not

“Wait!”

I hear you cry

“The assassins are humans! Augmented humans, you said it yourself!”

But stop

“I didn’t think there had been a person inside Hostile Two since before the first time we killed him”

“The two augmented humans GrayCris had sent to kill Dr. Mensah had been less sentient than hauler bots.”

So Hostile=not human

Any exceptions to this gratefully received

[rosewind2007]

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again:

Why does everyone (Preservation Survey Team and Murderbot Diaries Readers alike) ignore how remarkable it is that Gurathin spots that Murderbot is rogue?

At the start of All Systems Red, Murderbot has been a rogue for 35,000 hours.

That is (even using weird 28 hour cycles) well over three (possibly approaching four) years.

THREE YEARS IS A LONG TIME!

This will include time spent with other SecUnits; “station units”; SecUnit technicians; company employees who know Secunits… Basically people (I’m including bots/constructs as people here) who would be expected to be better able to spot MB’s idiosyncratic behaviour more than some random augmented human.

On the survey Murderbot rescues Bharadwaj and Volescu from the worm . It shows its face (who of the Preservation team didn’t know it had a face?); and everyone hears its (oh so very human) voice coaxing Volescu out of the worm’s antlion-like trap.

In the book we open with the worm scene, but Gurathin has clearly seen through Murderbot’s little charade before then. By the “planning to head and check on DeltFall” scene (page 35-38 my e-copy) Gurathin knows something is up. He can see this SecUnit isn’t obeying its governor module. This is evident to the extent that Ratthi spots that there is something up…with Gurathin:

“Gurathin said, “What situations?”

Ratthi gave him a bemused look. “This situation. The unknown. Strange threats. Monsters exploding out of the ground.”

I was glad I wasn’t the only one who thought it was a dumb question.

Ratthi is bemused by Gurathin’s questions (plural, he also asks “What about your systems?” earlier in this scene).

I would note that Gurathin’s comments in this scene both follow Murderbot explicitly disobeying its governor module:

“I could ignore the governor’s instructions to defend the stupid company”

“It was one of those impulses that comes from my organic parts that the governor is supposed to squash”

Clearly the Preservation Team have all had a shock. Bharadwaj is seriously injured, Volescu has taken psychic damage. BUT despite this Gurathin is still sure there is something off-kilter about their SecUnit and he isn’t letting this drop.

He later takes advantage of Murderbot shooting itself, and proves he’s right—BUT he knew something was up well before this.

How come? What was it he, Gurathin (augmented human, systems engineer) spotted, that everyone else missed? And why?

And how come no one (Team Preservation, Murderbot itself, or the readers of the book) seems to be asking questions about this?

Notes:

Network Effect mentions Preservation 28 hour cycles

Station Units, mentioned twice in All Systems Red, and then never again…

Antlions build hugely sophisticated traps:

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2019.0365

[rosewind2007]

Hostile Ones in the Murderbot Diaries!

All Systems Red: The worm! It’s got a “really big mouth”, which is full of teeth or cilia or whatever and stabs Murderbot with one of them. Murderbot shoots it with a really big gun, though it apparently escapes

Exit Strategy: The Combat SecUnit! Murderbot admits it’s kinda flattered they thought it was dangerous enough to deploy one of these. Then Murderbot is slightly offended when the CSU rejects its offer of hacking its governor module on the grounds that it (CSU) wants to kill it (MB). Last seen/heard of jerking back as the barrier slams into place as MB fires its weapon at it…fate unknown

Network Effect: Chemically enhanced augmented human would be assassin of Mensah. Apparently with the intellectual ability of a hauler bot. This one is last seen almost definitely dead

I think I’m (1) the worm, I liked the way GrayCris tried to use the planet’s natural resources as assassins initially—though I do think the PresAux biologists should have spotted that the craters might be traps…

[rosewind2007]

Competence of the PresAux biologists:

The coast was dotted with big bare craters, one of which Bharadwaj and Volescu were taking samples in.

This coast has these BIG and BARE craters sitting along it?

I was looking at the sky and mentally poking at the feed when the bottom of the crater exploded.

Now…look, I know their maps has been tampered with and stuff! But surely, someone (Arada, or Ratthi?) has got to look at these weird anomalous craters and go hmmmm?

The footing on the side of the crater was lousy, soft sand and loose pebbles, but my legs weren’t damaged and I got up to the top with both humans still alive.

This “footing”? Again, Murderbot: I know xenobiology isn’t your thing? But shouldn’t it have been someone’s?

Turns out there has been sabotage:

A quick comparison with the other parts of the report told me that yeah, something had been removed, a connection to a subreport broken. “You’re right,” I said, distracted as I rifled through data storage looking for the missing piece. I couldn’t find it; it wasn’t just a broken connection, somebody had actually deleted the subreport. That was supposed to be impossible with this type of planetary survey package, but I guess it wasn’t as impossible as all that. “Something’s been deleted from the warnings and the section on fauna.”

And then:

Mid expression of frustration, Ratthi said, “So we have no way to know if that creature was an aberration or if they live at the bottom of all those craters?”

Easy to be wise after the event, Ratthi.

Arada, who was one of the biology specialists, said, “You know, I bet they do. If those big avians we saw on the scans land on those barrier islands frequently, that creature might be preying on them.”

“It would explain what the craters are doing there,” Mensah said more thoughtfully. “That would be one anomaly out of the way, at least.”

Listen to them all NOW, but…imagine you’re visiting a strange new world. There are all these anomalous craters? Craters with “lousy footing” no less? Don’t your little animal behaviour spidey senses kick in?

Like I said, I KNOW the bad guys deliberately removed the info about the planet’s giant antlions, but shouldn’t someone have gone “Hmmmm…”

There were some notes in the feed from Ratthi and Arada, that fauna like the one we were now calling Hostile One might have made all the anomalous craters in the survey area.

Yeah, great to have those notes now gang.